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THE BANAL LAPSES OF HEROES
The Banal Lapses of Heroes is a body of paintings, Drawings, prints and sculpture that operates something akin to a reconstruction or reinterpretation of existing stories, characters or events that already sit in the collective memory, drawn from somewhere in time and yet outside temporal space.
By working through archetypal forms, characters emerge that challenge fixed ideas about trust, faith and the unknown.
Totemic of a deep drive to externalise hidden things through characterisation and a preoccupation with memory and nostalgia, an image can posit a peculiar melancholy or sense of the uncanny, by memorialization of archetypal heroes, tricksters and bizarre phenomena.
Each piece is dense with archetypes and recognizable emblems, whilst equally implying a new and perhaps foreign language of myth and allegory. It implies that there are perhaps things 'lying beneath' that are unfathomable, just below the veneer, that will defy preconceived logic and expectation.
Research |
Mark Metcalfe is an painter and printmaker working in London.
He has shown extensively in the uk and overseas and has worked as an assistant to Damien Hirst for a number of years. |
Background |
Education 2009 MA Visual Arts, University of the Arts, London (Camberwell) 2008 BA (Hons) Fine Art, London Metropolitan University (First Class) Awards & Prizes Nominated for Goldener Kentaur, European Art Award Artichoke Printmakers Award John Purcell Paper Award Owen Rowley Award 1st Prize Sir John Cass Purchase Prize Exhibitions freelance & Research 2021 Spring Awakening, London Paint Club, 2020 Cloud 9, ad Lib Gallery, Chelsea Everyday is a Miracle Ad Lib Gallery, Chelsea, London 2019 Art Below, Old Brompton Gallery, Chelsea, London. Themselves, Warehouse Festival, Copeland Road, Peckham, London. Art Below, Herrick Gallery, Mayfair, London Unmissable, The Other Art Fair, Truman Brewery, London 2018 Voids Rage Chimera Bloom (Two Person Show) A Side B Side Gallery, Mare Street, Hackney, London. 2017 In Vista & An American Anima (Two Person Show) Anna Lovely Gallery, 140 Sydenham Road, London. 2012/16 Research on Early European Kabbalah, Toledo, Spain 2010/11 Modern Masterpieces (two Person Show), Fire Station Arts Centre, Windsor, Berks. Slip the Souls Silk with Offerings, (One Person Show), Turner & Thom gallery, Eton High Street, Eton, Berks. Taming the Wolf of Gubbio, In collaboration with Emma Somerset Davis, Ace & Lion Gallery, Islington, London. Open Studio, Blue Anchor Lane, Bermondsey, London 1916, In collaboration with Emma Somerset Davis, Triangle Space, Chelsea, London. 2009 In the Absence of Danny Laski, MA Visual Arts (Printmaking) Show, Wilson Road, Camberwell, London. De Te Fabula Narratur, (The Story Is About You), , Camberwell Church Street, London. Goldener Kentaur, European Art Award, Munich. Atlas: Separated by Intervals, Group show co-curated with Emma Somerset Davis, St Pancras Church Gallery London. 2008 156th Autumn Show, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol. All This Time, Site specific group show, The Crypt, St Pancras Church, London. Enders: Some Things Worth Knowing, Britannia Works, London. 2006 Vanity Show, E1, London. Peace Camp, Brick Lane Gallery, London. 2006 Make Your Own Damn Art, Poetry Reading, Bob & Roberta Smith Show, Resonance FM 2005 Nausea, Hackney Round Chapel, London & Sweden. 2004 Somerset Society of Artists, Brew-house Theatre of the Arts, Taunton, Somerset. 2003 Somerset Art Week, Archway Gallery, Wellington, Somerset. Solo Works, The Wilkin’s Room, Brewhouse Theatre of the Arts, Taunton, Somerset. William Pelly Gallery, Lyme Bay, Dorset. The Frame Gallery, Wellington, Somerset. 2002 Bookshop Gallery, Taunton, Somerset. 2001 Light, Solo show, Archway Gallery, Wellington, Somerset. Bookshop Gallery, Taunton, Somerset. 98–00 Archaeological illustration for Taunton Heritage. |